


ada, i can hear the sound of your laugh through the wall

by perennial



Category: My Fair Lady, Pygmalion - Shaw
Genre: Deleted Scenes, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Non-Canon Relationship, Rarepair, Upstairs Downstairs - Freeform, and one (1) sensible cat-herder, and one (1) tranquil shit-stirrer, and one (1) wildfire violet-seller, employer-employee romance, friendly reminder that higgins is canonically 40, fundamentally a story about how much i love eliza, the gang's all here, we love one (1) smitten jackass, whether this lands closer to shaw's intent than my mfl fics usually do is up for debate, you can't stop me @george bernard shaw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23996737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perennial/pseuds/perennial
Summary: "He's in love with you," says Eliza.She saysWho, thinking that if that butcher put a bug in the girl's ear to put in a good word for him, she'll throttle him within an inch of his life the next time she sees him, see if she doesn't."The professor," says Eliza, and it takes everything in her to not drop the hairbrush.AU in which Mrs. Pearce is thirty-five years old and goes by 'Mrs.' only because of stuffy 1900s English propriety.
Relationships: Eliza Doolittle & Henry Higgins, Eliza Doolittle & Hugh Pickering, Eliza Doolittle & Mrs. Pearce, Mrs. Pearce/Henry Higgins
Comments: 15
Kudos: 42





	ada, i can hear the sound of your laugh through the wall

**Author's Note:**

> [title](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2E7fBHIUGBs) & [waltz take 4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPFT3hVCvgQ)
> 
> PSA it's literally impossible to watch My Fair Lady and pretend that Higgins is in love with anybody but Eliza so don't bother trying

"I know you don't approve," he says. "You needn't be so loud about it."

There is no answering this; at least, not in a way he'd have the patience or courage to listen to; so she keeps her lips firmly pressed together.

Out comes the dusting apparatus; back go the unshelved books. She dusts beneath potted ferns and small clocks and the statuette of Hermes and replaces them with a thud. It has been a long time since anyone cleaned behind the armchairs in the corner, she reflects, and shoves them out of place. The man sprawled on the chaise, stuffing himself with cucumber sandwiches while trying to read the _Times_ , groans.

"Mrs. _Pearce_ ," he says.

She decides that is the opening she wants and rounds on him. "That girl is young and good-hearted and hasn't seen enough of the world yet to know that not every scoundrel looks like one, and I won't aid you in being the ruin of her. Sir."

"Is that what you think this is? With that gutter rat! I assure you, nothing could be further from my mind."

She scoffs heartily. "I've eyes in my face, and _hers_ are very pretty."

The master of the house scoffs back at her. "She's half my age."

"You'd hardly be the first."

"For shame! You know me better than that."

She'd thought she did, yes, two hours ago. A great deal of one's mind can change between luncheon and tea, Mary Pearce is learning.

"You've never been a quiet man, sir. You have your own way of doing things, and everyone in this house accepts that you've got some funny habits and you aren't particularly proper. But I never thought I'd see the day when such goings-on would occur beneath this roof."

"Oh, come now, Mrs. Pearce. I haven't the slightest intent of sullying anyone, least of all myself. And everyone on this street knows that you wouldn't keep house for me if it were otherwise. Your own pristine reputation shall keep you and all the rest of us safe from the gossipmongers."

"Gossip is the least of my concerns, sir."

He sounds a little uncomfortable when he asks, "You don't think me a scoundrel," though he manages to make it not sound like a question. He adds, like a schoolboy, "Pickering encouraged it, after all."

"I like the Colonel fine but get the two of you together and it's a recipe for disaster."

"You must find it in yourself to trust me, Mrs. Peace. I still captain this ship—" his briefly belligerent tone fades before the look in her eyes, turns into something more reassuring, "and I won't run it aground."

"Won't you? Do you know what you're doing, sir?"

"I'm going to remake her," he says. "And if she can't be remade I'll throw her out."

They have a new fight. She refuses to take in the girl if he might toss her aside on a whim. He huffs and puffs about how it's his place to make the house rules and no one else's, but in the end he makes a list of transgressions that will qualify the girl for a true throwing-out. Mary still isn't happy about the situation, but she has worked for the professor long enough to recognize the light in his eye: he is embracing this new project, hungry for the challenge; he will not lose interest in a week and bring trouble on them all.

And so Eliza Doolittle joins the household at 27A Wimpole Street.

\-- .- .-. -.--

The first few days are utter hell. In her ten years of Henry Higgins' employ, Mary has never truly considered giving notice, but the professor is lucky things start to improve after the first week or it very well may have been herself on the sidewalk with her portmanteau.

Eliza doesn't know how to bathe. She doesn't know how to chew with her mouth closed or that a knife is not a multi-purpose feeding instrument. She doesn't know how to walk down the stairs without making the picture frames shake. She doesn't know how to sleep, even: she complains about lying on a mattress 'what moves around so, one's in danger of falling off!' Her voice has two volumes: loud and louder. She has a pet bird; it takes after her where volume is concerned. Mary almost boils the bird.

They barely sleep, the three of them: professor, colonel, and student. She can hear them up at all hours. Talking, always talking. Voice recordings and chimes and garbled wordless noises seep up through the library ceiling, through the guest rooms, through the floor of Mary's bedroom. They won't stop raiding the larder in the middle of the night.

"At least do me a favor and tell me what you've polished off," she tells the professor. "Those teacakes were for Lord Braceburn's visit. I had to serve him shortbread."

"I wondered about that," he says. "All for the best, Mrs. Pearce! Braceburn deserves to drink ditch water, never mind your lovely teacakes."

There are dark shadows under his eyes; he runs a tired hand over his face. Pity blooms in her heart. She has no idea how he hopes to accomplish his goal. They haven't made a drop of progress that she can discern: Eliza remains largely unintelligible from one day to the next. The girl hasn't the mind for learning, is Mary's private opinion; the professor is an ocean wave crashing against a cliffside. And in the meantime the household staff must attempt to handle her like one might a willful, nervous cat, and suffer the dictaphone bellowing all through the night.

.--. . .- .-. -.-. .

A week after the project launch, Mary goes into Eliza's bedroom to change the linens and finds its occupant sobbing into her pillow. Her blubbering renders her utterly incomprehensible but it doesn't take a linguist to know what has upset her.

Mary is ashamed of herself. She has been pitying the professor and the colonel and the staff and yes, herself, but what is Eliza guilty of, really? Just trying to pull herself up from the gutter into some meager happiness. She is ignorant, sure, but she has mettle. She could just as easily walked out on the whole miserable endeavor but here she is.

The housekeeper comforts the girl as best she can. "Don't pay him any mind. He's a bad apple. A spoiled, selfish brute in nice togs. When he bullies you, give him back as good as he gives."

Eliza wails something; Mary discerns that she is trying her best. One assumes that means fighting back. Well, Mary herself knows what disagreements with the professor are like. He's as slippery as an eel and immovable as Buckingham Palace.

"Patience, lass. You'll learn him; we all did. Six months will go fast. Ten to one you'll be able to beat him at his own game by then, just watch."

Eventually the tears cease. Eliza sniffs inelegantly. "Where's Mr. Pearce, eh?"

"There is no Mr. Pearce and never has been. _Missus_ is the title that came with the position."

Eliza gives her an earful about what she thinks of _that_ , and more besides. Her stint in Wimpole Street has not improved her opinion of the upper class and their stodgy, nonsensical rules. Mary finds herself warming to the girl; educated she may not be, but she's whip-smart when it comes to sizing up other people, and her views of 'these posh' are remarkably in line with Mary's, though the latter would never admit it to a soul.

Eliza doesn't know that etiquette demands she address the housekeeper as Mrs. Pearce and that she should not call her by her given name, but Mary keeps forgetting to inform her.

.... . -. .-. -.--

The professor tends to Eliza's brain and the colonel tends to her heart and the housekeeper tends to her body.

The professor lives his work: he tracks every syllable that leaves Eliza's tongue, from her greeting in the morning to her goodnight adieu. He stamps pronunciations down and drags others out kicking and screaming. The number of times Mary has to ask Eliza to repeat herself shrinks from three to two; less and less often is it necessary to mentally insert consonants or subtract vowels in order to suss out meaning from the sounds she makes.

The colonel, bless him, is a sunbeam turned human; he shines merry golden light down on all of them, warming icy offense and calming tempestuous spirits. Student and professor would have clawed each other's faces off during the first week if not for Pickering's gentle refereeing. The staff, having ascertained within a day of the colonel's arrival that he is incapable of condescension or ill-humor, are utterly devoted to him. Eliza is like a sunflower, opening and blooming in the light of his esteem. "He's posh," she tells Mary, "but he ent like rest of 'em." Affection-starved, Mary wants to tell her obdurate employer, who seems to think himself a wronged duelist standing for honor where sessions with Eliza are concerned; but he remains conveniently deaf to advice, regardless of the source.

Mary has never known someone who laughs as much as Eliza does. The professor laughs a great deal, but there's always something a bit acerbic about his humor. In ten years Mary can count on as many fingers the number of times she has seen a completely delighted, eyes watering, self-forgotten laugh from Henry Higgins. Eliza laughs with merriment — without constraint — as often as possible. She sings, too, and treats the whole house as her dance hall, and greets everyone with irrepressible cheer when she appears in the breakfast room despite the anticipated correction.

It doesn't take long for the whole household to fall in love with her. She's a burst of confetti in the monotone of their days, she is a whirlwind, she is spiced rum and static electric shocks. They are all pulling for her, and they show it in quiet ways that the professor would never notice, let alone appreciate, but it's a language Eliza speaks fluently. An extra dollop of cream on her scone, her favorite flowers in the library, a strawberry and honey biscuit waiting by her bed, a smile in the hallway, a wink over the professor's head—

Mary is neither instructor nor sunbeam. She attends to the things she knows: the right note to strike with Eliza's daywear in order to indicate her social standing, which is something of a triumph seeing as there can be no vaguer status in all of England; explaining things the professor cannot or should not, such as how to dose oneself with laudanum for monthly cramps; feeding the girl three square meals a day for once in her life, plus tea; and dressing Eliza's hair, which she could have the housemaids do, or teach the girl to do for herself, but, somehow, has become the calmest part of her day. There is something soothing about standing in the quiet with Eliza seated before her sleepy and pliant, smoothing and pinning that shining dark hair into place as the soft morning sunshine slowly fills the bedroom.

.... .. --. --. .. -. …

The professor tosses a section of the newspaper down the table. "Page four. Your favorite is at it again."

Eliza and Colonel Pickering have gone for a walk; Mary has only to finish clearing away the breakfast things before she gets her mid-morning break. She beams her thanks to the man at the head of the table and tucks the paper into her apron.

He smiles back, pleased—by her pleasure or his own magnanimity, who can say. "No, leave the table to Kit. Go off to your coffee."

She pauses at the door. "What do you think it looks like, sir? All the way up there?" She isn't given to wistfulness, so the presence of it in her voice is a surprise to herself.

"Hardly different, I'm sure. Go climb the Tower, Mrs. Pearce! You can find out without having to take your life in your hands."

She is still smiling when she sits down in the rocker in her little room off the kitchen and opens the paper to the article she'll read and reread: _AVIATRIX FLIES CHANNEL: 'America's First Lady of the Air' Harriet Quimby Lands Near Calais._

. .-.. .. --.. .-

"They're shouting again," reports an anxious Agnes. All faces turn toward Mary.

"We've discussed this. It isn't my place to intervene." Unless he hurts her. She promised them. It was an easy promise to make; they are seasoned staff who know the professor well, and no one truly thinks him capable of raising a hand against another person—but if anyone is capable of driving him to it, it's Eliza.

Mary wishes the colonel would do something. She had hinted at it not the day before, and in return he had merely tapped the side of his nose. "Pebbles, Mrs. Pearce," he'd said cryptically. "They have to settle amongst each other before the stream can flow smoothly."

 _Soft_ , she thinks, climbing the stairs to the main floor. A housekeeper who tells the housemaids she'll 'see that all is well' for the sake of seeing relief wash the worry from their faces is _soft_.

She can hear the brawlers from the landing. "Do you exist to torture me?" he roars.

The professor's problem is that he navigates each session with fluctuating patience. His approach to Eliza is not unlike a determined gardener with pruning shears facing down a recalcitrant laurel or a stone-faced nursemaid dragging her charges home from the park.

Eliza obeys him, but not blindly; she pushes back, refusing to be pruned or cowed or tamed. Mary approves. Anyone who can't nip back at the professor gets eaten alive. Eliza will make it through this trial with her head above water.

She listens at the door until she is satisfied that the maids will get a delicious earful when the student tromps up to her bedroom after the conclusion of the day's lesson.

-.. --- --- .-.. .. - - .-.. .

It's easy to mother on Eliza, despite the fact that she's a woman grown and a street-wise one at that. She's so plainly motherless.

She is curled up on the rug beside Mary's little stove, sipping oolong and flipping idly through fashion pages while Mary knits Kit a pair of socks. She snorts suddenly. "Look." She holds up the catalog: a woman is pictured wearing an intricately cascading neck ribbon. "A shilling, for that!"

"It's not the ribbon they're selling," says Mary, taking a closer look. "It's the clip that forms the cascade."

Eliza shakes her head at her knowingly. "Imagine, payin' for such a thing! Nobody needs a gidget for that." She pulls a sash from Mary's mending pile and loops it around her neck. Her hands move deftly, tugging and looping. "An' twist, an'—" She moves her hands away to reveal a cascade just as chic as the woman in the picture.

Astonished, all Mary can say is "Eliza!"

The girl gives a little laugh. "Good trick, innit?" She retrieves the catalogue and tucks her feet under herself. Her finger traces the inked fold of a cuff and her wrist flexes in perfect imitation of how the hand is hanging in the air. Lessons in the library have centered on conversating mannerisms of late. "Feathers on such a hat," she scoffs. "There's easier ways to drive off your man."

And this girl wants to work in a flower shop. She ought to assist the queen.

Growth is a slow thing, invisible to the naked eye, until one wakes up to green stalks and unfurling buds. Refined English girls are meant to be prim, pretty lilies and roses: a fragrant presence in the room, charming against the backdrop of a box hedge.

"No, _thank_ you, sir," says Eliza, sounding like the Covent Garden version of Henry Higgins—then laughs.

Eliza, Mary thinks, is a burst of frangipani.

.... ..- --. ....

"That's the second time the butcher's been here this week," the professor says, fingers busy with the spectrograph.

Mary stops reading out the week's menu to look at him in surprise.

"What? You think I don't know the comings and goings of my own house?"

"You could have fooled me."

"Well? Am I to wish you every happiness?"

She looks heavenward. "I've no intention of going anywhere, and especially not with the likes of him."

"Good," he barks, "because I shant bribe you to stay."

She snorts at this. Whatever his many faults, the professor is generous where wages are concerned. There are bribes already built into the wages of the whole household, due principally to those very faults.

She finishes with the menu, then piles crumby dishes and jelly-smeared spoons onto the tea tray. She glances at him as she swings out of the room; if she's not mistaken, he looks quite pleased.

.--. .. -.-. -.- . .-. .. -. --.

Eliza is elated, distracted, walking on air. They steer her toward the bedroom and into her nightgown. She twirls around the room, waltzing with the housemaids, unable to settle. "I did it," she tells Mary. "I can do anything now." She is still singing to herself when they close the door.

"She's in bed," Mary tells the professor, "though she's as far from sleep as a person can be."

He yawns. "With good reason. We crossed the divide," which makes about as much sense as anything she got from Eliza, despite all vowels and consonants intact.

The clock in the foyer chimes three-thirty. Mary has two hours to get a full night's sleep.

"We'll have a late breakfast. Ten-thirty, no earlier. If Pickering pokes his nose downstairs before then, tell him to make his own toast." She understands that the staff are being permitted a few extra hours of rest. She nods, letting her appreciation show in her eyes.

He stands at the head of the stairs and looks at her without speaking. She debates shaking him: he appears to be falling asleep where he stands.

"Goodnight," he says, quiet.

"Goodnight," she returns, and wonders when, precisely, they abandoned the formality of addressing each other by their titles.

..-. .-. . -.. -.. -.--

Mary answers the doorbell to a handsome, dreamy-eyed young man in Ascot wear. He seems to think nothing of the fact that he is calling during the supper hour. He gabbles for a moment, but she has been well trained of late in the art of interpreting the nonsensical. He wants Eliza.

She opens the door to him, but he refuses to enter. He'd rather dream of Miss Doolittle, he says, and hands over flowers and a letter to deliver.

 _High-strung,_ she thinks. _Bad with money_.

Enter Freddy Eynsford-Hill.

The flowers cheer Eliza considerably. Within minutes she has stopped drooping over the table and started an argument with the professor over what they would name a racehorse and what color it ought to be, were they to purchase one. She thinks nothing of sharing the contents of the letter with her other male companions in the library after supper. It is quite clear to Mary whose heart is involved in this gray-suited love affair and who isn't aware they are a participant. She watches the professor's face as the colonel reads the enclosed poem aloud; it betrays nothing but disgust.

The colonel says, "Quite an artist, this fellow. The attempt to rhyme 'rhododendron' with 'birds to mention' was remarkably original."

The professor reads, "Hair like flowing honey—cor, what a line! and jungle eyes. What on earth is a jungle eye? Is that meant to be hazel? Eliza's not honey or hazel. She's all brown. He's mixed up Eliza with Mrs. Pearce."

Eliza complains, "Why do you insist on calling her 'Missus' when she has a perfectly good name that ain't a lie?"

"Isn't," severely.

" _Isn't_."

"She became a Missus when I made her my housekeeper. That's the way the world turns, Eliza. You best accept it and stop haranguing me about it day after day."

"There are better ways to make someone a Missus, in _my_ opinion."

Pickering coughs gently.

Mary's head spins. Was that a hint? Does Eliza desire attentions from the professor?

"Jungle eyes," snaps Eliza, "means I've got keen vision. I see all the things you miss." She snatches the letter from his hand and flounces out.

The Colonel follows, stating he wants the book he has left upstairs. Mary offers to fetch it for him but he raises a repressive hand and shows her a smile. "I live in fear of the day I can no longer climb a staircase, Mrs. Pearce. Let me keep it at bay for another few minutes, at very least." The door closes behind him decisively.

Mary goes to tidy everything left in disarray in the wake of Eliza's passing: three open books, a pencil and notepapers, a teacup harboring cold dregs, a cardigan, two hairpins, settee pillows on the floor. The professor watches her with his hands in his pockets. He scuffs at the rug with his heel. "Poor sod."

"Pardon?"

"Imagine. Transfixed by _Miss Doolittle._ "

"Is it so surprising?" She plumps a pillow.

"Perhaps not. She can be charming when she's a mind to. Still, hard to imagine wanting to spend life at her side."

"And yet, that is how you spend your days."

"Curse it, Mary, I'm trying to tell you—Mrs. _Pearce_. When she first came here—and you and I had that row. And you said—well, I won't repeat it, but! I simply want to make it clear that nothing has changed!"

"Hasn't it? I think a great deal has changed." She realizes quite suddenly that Eliza is going to leave them. Not tomorrow, or next week, but once this whole game is played out and her training is complete, she will vacate the premises. Just weeks ago Mary was counting down the days.

"Whatever the situation may be," he grinds, standing like a soldier facing down a hurricane, " _that_ has not. And will not."

"Very good, sir. I'm sure it makes no difference to me."

"Doesn't it?"

"So long as you're happy, one way or the other."

He looks at her for a moment, expression unreadable. She glances at him and he turns toward the window, busying himself with his pipe. She stokes the fire and realizes her hands are trembling.

"Mrs. Pearce," he says as she is preparing to leave the room. She pauses, fingers on the door handle. "For Pete's sake, don't let Eliza choose the supper menu for tomorrow."

. -.-- -. ... ..-. --- .-. -..

Eliza's training expands to include solo errand-running. Today's excursion is to the stationery shop. She is standing in the foyer and Mary is coming down the stairs when the professor emerges from the library and discovers his student there.

"Why are you still here?" He is holding tuning forks in both hands.

Mary says, "It was me, sir. I wanted to give her a wrap. The wind is picking up."

Eliza puts on the shawl, sticks out her tongue at the professor, and departs. He looks at Mary, amused. "You do know she isn't your living doll, don't you?"

"I'm not the one having trouble remembering, sir, but thank you."

"Whom do you mean? Pickering?"

"Among others."

"Whom do you mean? Me?"

Mary picks up her skirts and reascends the stairs. He stands below, watching her walk away. He shouts after her, "Mrs. _Pearce!_ "

She goes into Eliza's room to resume the careful papering and boxing up of the confection of lace the professor and the colonel painstakingly selected for Eliza's day at the races.

.- ..- -.. .-. . -.--

The Eynsford-Hill lad takes up residence beneath the Wimpole Street cherry blossoms like an alley cat. This is the least of Mary's problems.

In the weeks following Ascot, the three of them manage to reach a level of codependence that she finds frankly concerning. They can hardly be prised apart. Three peas in a pod, the bunch of them, though at face value there seem to be no people more different. They're schemers, they are. Mischief makers. Good-hearted ones, thank heaven. Mary has enough trouble with the professor without needing two more hellions in this house. Eliza's training intensifies, if such a thing is possible; but now it's interspersed with day trips to the seaside and nights at the opera in the professor's mother's box. Mrs. Higgins—the dowager, they call her belowstairs, a lady possessing all the good breeding the professor imagines he has, pays a visit to deliver a diamond bracelet she's loaning to Eliza and is unlucky enough to observe part of a lesson. She emerges from the library with a decisive shake of her head at Mary and the butler.

Lessons morph into escapades more often than not. Like now: someone has gotten the notion it would be a good idea to have a knife-throwing contest in the library. This, after they've spent the morning jumping from the upper balcony of the library onto a pile of mattresses and cushions below. This is what comes of patronizing travelling circuses. They're lucky Eliza didn't break her leg.

The knives are the colonel's; he is showing off his collection of Indian weaponry for Eliza's benefit. For all he is to blame for the bet, Mary is unspeakably grateful for Colonel Pickering's presence in the house. The professor is careless with Eliza, for all that his affection for her has grown markedly. The colonel, however, is remarkably sensitive to Eliza's needs and wishes, and he and Mary work together to keep her world stable. Words were the lessons a few months ago; now it is posture, curtsying, the very way she breathes. It's a wonder she hasn't collapsed under the pressure.

Perhaps it is because she is spending her afternoons hurling knives across the library.

Agnes and Kit refuse to open the library door for fear of losing an eye, so it falls to Mary to deliver the tea tray. She is hailed with enthusiasm that goes beyond the arrival of food; they intend to lure her into the contest.

Housekeeper though she may be, Mary is hardly unfamiliar with knives; meals fall to her on Sundays and whenever the cook is off. The colonel's knives have heavy hilts and much smaller blades than the ones she is accustomed to using. He shows her seemingly identical flicks of wrist that are meant to spin the weapon so that it strikes its target in a variety of ways, then makes her practice with Eliza, who has taken to the lesson with gusto. She looks up in time to catch the professor's eye. He smiles at her from the other end of the room.

She manages to hit their makeshift target five times and is feeling herself a regular Robin Hood before the inevitable happens. She swaps knives with Eliza, one is fumbled, and a flash of spinning silver is followed by stinging pain along her forearm.

They're around her in an instant, fussing: the colonel presses his handkerchief to her arm, Eliza clucks advice, the professor hovers anxiously. The cut isn't bad but it's deep enough to need a stitch or two. A doctor is suggested; society doctors are briefly railed against by the resident soldier; iodine, thread, and a needle are procured.

The colonel is as good as his word: he works quickly and expertly and has her sewn up and bandaged in minutes. Eliza is a valiant nursemaid to his field medic, applying pressure and iodine when and where directed. The procedure _hurts,_ though, far more than the act of injury itself did. Mary's uninjured arm gropes blindly and meets a firm, ready grasp, the possessor of which lets her grip his hand so tightly she surely cuts off his circulation, but he makes no sound of protest.

.-- .. -- .--. --- .-.. .

Colonel Pickering accepts his coffee cup with a smile. "Mrs. Pearce, how would you like to keep house for me when I return to India?"

She remembers, a few years back: the professor had hosted a General on home leave from his post in Delhi. His valet was from Kashmir. The staff had listened, transported, as the valet described his homeland: bursting with colors and heat, full of spices that lingered in the nose and mouth, its fauna raucous, its dances far from sedate, its fabrics skimming the skin. Mary herself had been caught up in the visions his words painted, but it had been a relief to be released back into the Wimpole Street kitchen's tidy hearthside and knotted rug and bluebell-patterned china. Color and chaos were very well and good for some people, she had thought at the time, but had no place in her life.

"I'd like that very much, sir," she answers.

The wall of newspaper across the room flips downward. "What!"

"Excellent," says the colonel. "That's a weight off my mind."

Mary turns toward the awakened volcano in the corner. It is glowing red and starting to spew. It fixes her with a glare. "Mutiny!"

"Oh, hush," she tells it. "You're coming too."

.- --. -. . ...

The music has been going only a little while longer than the laughter, which has been going on only a little while longer than the yelling.

The door to the library opens and noise fills the heart of the house. Within, Pickering pounds on the piano to the accompaniment of the gramophone; their combined efforts produce something like the Mädel Klein waltz. The professor's head, which the library doors opened to expel, roars for Mary.

They are trying to teach Eliza to dance.

" _I know how._ " Thus Eliza, on the settee with arms crossed.

"Like a Scotsman!" The professor holds a hand out to his housekeeper. "Let's show her how it's done by royalty, Mrs. Pearce."

Dancing is a rarely-indulged love of Mary's, so she is happy to oblige. She takes the proffered hand and is pulled forward.

Her partner is a tall man and she has no height to boast; she has to stand close to him to reach his shoulder. She can feel his collarbone under her palm. It's strange sometimes, remembering that Henry Higgins is made of all the same materials as everybody else. The warmth of his other hand slides across her waist and settles against the small of her back. He winks at her and bellows, "Ready!" to the pianist.

The professor spends the first three rounds of the song shouting instructions to Eliza—"See how she turns without _kicking?_ Here, again, Mrs. Pearce—do be quiet for a moment, Hugh," for the colonel is singing as he plays. They don't disintegrate into the laughter and whoops the library witnessed some nights past, but the room is warm and Mary was summoned directly from the exertions of her after-supper duties, so by the time they have made it through the song thrice, she is flushed and smiling broadly.

"Like a swan," he says. "Like Harriet Quimby's Bleriot monoplane. Who taught you to dance, Mrs. Pearce?"

Eliza chimes in: "Who else but her father?" Mary has told her about her childhood running wild in the Lakes. "Fathers and brothers are a girl's first dance partners, if one can be caught."

"Well, that explains everything. Most certainly," this to his protegee, "about _you._ "

"Bist Du's, Lachendes Glück!" the colonel announces. The gramophone bursts forth with fresh song.

This fourth time through, the professor is mostly silent: lobbing occasional corrections at Eliza, who is practicing with a ghost behind the chaise, and otherwise focused entirely on Mary. She senses that he has decided to simply enjoy himself this time around. They glide through the room in tandem: him in perfect control, her easy in the assurance of it, not one interlocking footstep out of place. His body is warm under her hands. His breath against her forehead is soft.

They spin to a stop and release each other slowly. He smiles down at her, dimples appearing. He is still holding her hand; he twists it gently, turning the underside of her arm upward in order to trace a finger along the red scar on her forearm bestowed by the business edge of the colonel's dagger.

"All healed?" he says quietly.

The combination of his dark blue eyes, looking down at her with concern and unmasked affection, and the brush of his fingers on her skin brings about a sudden weakness in her knees and elbows. She fights to keep her breathing even.

_No._

_Never._

"Nearly," she answers.

-.- .. -

Eliza sits at the dressing table and Mary stands behind her, brushing out her curls. From the angle they're at, the mirror lets her see enough of the girl's face to note that she looks content—as well she might, after such a supper—and rather thoughtful.

Eliza plays idly with bows and powder puffs. Mary wonders which are the right words to encourage her as the date of the Embassy Ball approaches. Eliza is a person of such specifics; one must hit the note exactly right or risk being thought condescending. She is making excellent progress but she isn't ready yet. She thrives on affirmation. Mary wishes she had the vocabulary of her employer, or even the reassurance the colonel is able to bestow without a single spoken word.

Steady. The dowager had called Mary that once. Steady and serene. That is the strongest thing she has to offer. She wonders if it's good enough.

"He's in love with you," says Eliza.

She says _Who_ , thinking that if that butcher put a bug in the girl's ear to put in a good word for him, she'll throttle him within an inch of his life the next time she sees him, see if she doesn't.

"The professor," says Eliza, and it takes everything in her to not drop the hairbrush.

She can't see her face, but the chit in the mirror can. The mirror-girl says, "I can't believe it. You really didn't know! Colonel Pickering said you didn't but I didn't believe him. You see everything, and it's plain as the nose on y'face."

Wide, gasping hope swallows Mary's heart. Another breath and pragmatism has banished it. She has lived alongside the man for ten years. He wouldn't. He doesn't.

"Plain indeed," she says, a little stiffly, glancing at the pretty, pointed feature reflected in the mirror. It wrinkles mischievously; Eliza says, "Do you think him handsome?"

Handsome! These are dangerous waters. "I'm sure I haven't looked twice," she answers, prim as anything.

"Liar!" says Eliza. "Even I've looked twice and I hate him, usually. Don't you like his blue eyes?"

Do _you?_ Mary thinks at the face in the mirror.

"You'd be good for him," Eliza says. "You are good for him."

"That's quite enough of this sort of talk."

"And he's good for you," the minx continues as Mary steers her toward the bed, silently thanking heaven the maids are downstairs. "You shake each other up. He breaks you up when you turn rigid, and you knock him off the pedestal he likes to stand on."

"Eliza, really."

"Why not? It is not a crime, is it?"

"It's not the done thing. And even if it were, you're seeing things where they don't exist."

Eliza, comfortably ensconced amongst linen and lace, merely smiles.

-.. --- .-- .- --. . .-.

Mary studies him after that, of course. Who wouldn't?

He smiles and shouts and is the same master of 27A Wimpole Street he has always been.

And Mary—

Mary is Mrs. Pearce, the housekeeper, whether or not Eliza forgets it.

\-- .-. ...

The gown is fit for a princess.

Eliza is quiet as they dress her. When they finish, Mary looks at her and could cry with pride. She is luminous: white and silver and glowing, the shine of the diamonds at her neck dull in comparison to her eyes, and when she smiles at them every woman in the room mists up. Her beauty has never been hidden, but this, _this_ is how it is meant to be displayed, this is how she is meant to be.

Mary wants to shout it to the whole neighborhood: look at her, see how far she has come, see what she has achieved! The rangy violet-seller from the market curb might have put on such a dress but only the Eliza who stands before them could truly wear it. She is superb.

And she is nervous. She doesn't say so, but it's there, in the tightness of her shoulders, in the way she holds her mouth closed. Everything depends on this evening. She cannot be anything less than perfect.

"You have all of us behind you, my dear. We'll be thinking of you every minute, cheering you on."

Eliza manages an uncertain smile. Mary is relieved to see the tension in her shoulders drop slightly.

Surely, with all their combined strengths supporting her—the professor's confidence, the colonel's goodness, her steadiness, Eliza's own determination—surely they will carry her through. They _must._

The professor is standing in the foyer. His tuxedo has transformed him into long, clean black lines. He looks up at Mary: blue eyes, sharp jaw, brilliantine-glossed hair. Then his neck twists at the sound of Eliza's footsteps on the stairs.

Eliza rounds the landing and turns hopeful eyes toward the professor. Mary finds herself turning away so as not to see his face when he sees Eliza.

The latch clicks shut behind them and they are gone.

She needs a cup of tea.

_Oh, Mary lass. You're in it deep, aren't you._

It does no one any good when a housekeeper is in love with her employer. Not a bit. She's been doing an admirable job of suppressing it for—years now, she's realizing; but jealousy has thoroughly uncorked that bottle, and now it's all there on the surface, bright and flaring.

Such an odd jealousy. She wonders if it counts as such, if she still loves the girl so much, if she wouldn't remove an ounce of that wildfire spirit, not a single layer of that beauty. It's only his heart she aches for.

\--. . --- .-. --. .

No one goes to bed; how could anyone possibly sleep? This is the culmination of everything they have spent the past six months living toward.

Finally, finally, the front door opens and the three of them step inside: elated, talking a mile a minute, bursting with triumph, conquering heroes all.

The staff are delirious with excitement and fatigue. Mary sends Agnes and Kit to bed and waits for Eliza.

It's some time before the bedroom door opens to admit a girl in red velvet with tears standing in her eyes. "Mary," she says. "I"m leaving."

-... . .-. -. .- .-. -..

Mary helps her shed the shining white dress. She helps her take down her hair and repin it into something manageable. She helps her pack all her clothes. She doesn't ask questions.

They go downstairs in silence. At the door she embraces her, tears in her own eyes. "A mother couldn't be prouder, Eliza."

"Thank you for everything," the girl whispers, and then she is closing the door and Mary is locking it behind her. She opens her bedroom window and listens until dawn for a knock or a ringing bell or her name called from the sidewalk. Birdsong starts up and carts rattle down the road, but Eliza does not return.

... .... .- .--

The professor walks around without any color in his face, roaring at everyone he sees, and she knows this is his fault, she _knows_ it is, curse the man. Every time their eyes meet she glares at him.

He rages briefly at her for helping Eliza sneak off without a word to him, but it's hardly the blistering lecture she braced herself for. He only shouts, "This is loyalty!" and goes to brew up a search party with the Colonel. The bulk of his furious energy is directed at Eliza herself, the remainder toward locating her.

Colonel Pickering departs for the Home Office. Having lost his search party, the professor tries to recruit Mary.

"It won't make any difference whether it's you or me or the Colonel who finds her," she tells him. "If she is determined to be gone, she'll stay gone."

"You might help her see reason. You can say the things I can't."

"Eliza knows her own mind. She doesn't need anyone to tell her what she wants. And when have you ever held back from saying a single thought in your head?" Oh, doesn't she know him, doesn't she know him! Arrogant and prideful, and feasting on a triumph six months in the making! Eliza didn't have to tell her what he said; she has reviewed her memories of the victory parade from the night before with a colder eye. Not a word of praise for anyone but himself! She has half a mind to leave him too.

"One would think you couldn't care less about her wellbeing."

"Eliza was taking care of herself long before she crossed this threshold," she reminds him, and gets a scowl for a reply.

He runs his hand through his hair. Something about the worried frown between his eyes checks her. Whether or not he has realized it, or accepted it, Eliza is burrowed just as deep into his heart as she is in Mary's. He grabs his hat and leaves the house without eating a thing.

The house is quiet. Not the comfortable, waiting quiet of absent denizens who are away from home and will return for their suppers and beds. It's an empty quiet. A gone quiet. A deserted, not to be filled quiet.

Hours pass. Mary's anger fades into concern. She couldn't have kept Eliza here if she'd tried, and she respects her wishes enough to be glad she didn't try, and yes, Eliza is tough and smart and if Mary had thought for a moment she couldn't take care of herself she would have roused the house before ushering her out into the wilds of London—but Lord! the girl left in the middle of the night, with only a disreputable father to go to, and it's a long way to Covent Garden from here, and no one thinks clearly when they're heart-bruised. And the clock keeps ticking forward with no sign of either the professor or the colonel.

The entire staff is upset; she distracts herself by keeping them busy. She cleans the library and annex thrice over with an ear toward the street entrance.

A key in the latch. She meets the professor at the door, heart in her throat. "Did you find her?"

"Yes." He looks weary and angry and lost. "She's at my mother's. She's eloping with the Eynsford-Hill boy. She gave me a telling off."

She breathes out in relief. "Don't you go into that library. You'll just sit in there and sulk. Come out to the garden with me. The fresh air will do you good."

"I've just been in the fresh air," he says, but follows anyway.

The kitchen garden has been sadly neglected over the past week, what with preparations for the ball taking up everyone's time. Mary tugs on her gloves and kneels in the dirt to weed and water. The professor sits on the small stool she usually uses, crosses his arms across his knees, and rests his chin on his arms.

"Gone. My little friend. I gave her a life and she threw it away."

There is no answering this; at least, not in a way he'd have the patience or courage to listen to; so she keeps her lips firmly pressed together.

She does cast him a look over her shoulder, and he gives her a sheepish shrug. So he did get a telling off. It seems to have stuck, too—far more than he is letting on. Bravo, Eliza.

He clears his throat. "Thank you for your patience over these last few months. I know I've been a beast to live with; I've been told so enough times."

"It's not untrue," she says, "but Eliza never saw what you were like before she came here. Depressed," she clarifies to his inquiring look. "It's been nice to see the bounce back in your step."

"Yes, she was an excellent distraction." He muses, "I thought I'd hidden it better than that."

"What kind of housekeeper would I be if I didn't know your moods? Well, all will be well what with the Colonel staying on for a bit."

"Perhaps."

"It will all work out for the best, never fear."

"Never fear," he repeats. "And yet I am often afeared."

"You?" she says, eyebrow raised. She pulls up a cluster of carrots and clears the dirt from them.

"I'm afraid to ask for what I want, for fear it won't want me back."

"You ought to take a leaf out of Eliza's book. She asked for you, and you didn't want her, and look at the pair of you now: she comports herself like a proper lady, and you've gone to pieces with her missing."

He smiles slightly. "Eliza is one hundred times braver than I'll ever be."

"Aye. And she has a hundred times more need of it. I daresay double that soon, now that she's been tidied up."

He watches her in silence for a while. "I suppose I can be one-hundredth as brave as Eliza," he finally says. "The thing is, Mary. The thing is. How might a man make you fall in love with him?" She stills. He says, "I've been trying for such a long time and gotten nowhere, so I might as well ask point-blank."

She stares at the lacy stalks of the carrot greens.

"Never mind," he says. "Do forget I said anything." She hears him stand and leave the porch.

_Oh, Eliza. You really do know him better than any of us. I should have listened._

She finds him in the library. He has flung himself into an armchair and is messing with the gramophone, as expected. He lifts a grey face to her. He probably thinks she is giving notice.

"No patience," she scolds. "Just dropping bombs and expecting me to have an answer ready. Couldn't wait ten seconds."

The man whose default response to being scolded is to behave like a schoolboy _smiles_ at this. Oh Lord, he's worse off than she is. She puts her hands on her hips.

"I like dancing with you. I like when you ask Cook to make those loganberry pastries you dislike just because you know Agnes and Kit will be allowed to eat any you don't. I even like when we brawl, because you forget to pretend I'm not your friend. More than anything, I like when you're honest—truly honest, no walls or pretense, even to yourself. Especially to yourself. I'd rather love a brave man, who wants others to know he loves them, than a proud man whose heart is as closed off as a prison." Mary takes a deep breath. "The rest you'll have to figure out on your own. And I hope you have an idea of how this is meant to work, because I haven't the slightest."

She can feel her face turning a fierce red. She turns and flees to the kitchen.

—Or tries to. He's up and after her in a bound, and he catches her in the hall.

"You're amenable?" His eyes are like nothing she's ever seen. Brilliant, fierce, possessive, delighted. " _Mary_."

And her hands, her hands are somehow resting on his chest. She can feel his sharp collarbones through the cloth of his shirt—can feel the shifting muscle of his shoulders as he winds his arms around her—can feel him smiling against her lips even as he fits his mouth to hers. She kisses him back with her whole heart.

It's not the done thing. But then, little in this house is.


End file.
